I Happily Waved 2020 Goodbye.........

 
Our Christmas day.

After our Christmas Dinner for two Daughter, M, R, O, D and the dog arrived for our "in the garden, covid safe" gathering. 

It took a small patio heater, a fire pit, a gazebo, coats, hats, gloves, pillows to sit on, constant hot drinks, six hot water bottles and a large pile of blankets but we survived and had a great evening 🤣

So many lovely gifts today but I have to make special mention of this wonderful lino cut print Daughter did of our home! 

Boxing day as like most of the UK we are now in tier 4, so with only the two of us here to feed for the near future I processed all the leftovers for the freezer, although there's still plenty in the fridge. Some turkey and the ham was sliced and can be cold meat with salad or sandwich filings. However my favourite method is to chop all the Christmas dinner leftovers, mix and box, later this is thawed add gravy, top with mash and oven bake yummy!

Sunday 27th

We keep getting power cuts and Hubby thinks it's related to the cooker reaching temperature and tripping the box, so he's called our electrician friend to come next week (not urgent or dangerous) and today Hubby's on a mission to clean the whole thing inside, behind and under before anyone has to look at it!

27th was my dad's birthday so that has traditionally been our family get together day. I would normally have about 30-35ish of us here all bringing food and drink for the feast sharing table, filling the drive with cars and filling the house with loud happy noise. Today we tried it on zoom! 🤣 and with everyone talking at the same time, children coming and going and seven dogs making appearances it was just like the normal chaos that is our family. Don't be fooled by this sedate screenshot 🤣

Monday and the sun was out and so were we for the last neighbours' coffee morning of the year. Very cold and surrounded by wheelie bins as delayed from our normal Friday collection. 

Thursday and New Year's Eve, was a treatment day, so hospital in the morning and an uncomfortable afternoon but thankfully eased by the evening. Hubby and I decided to do the online quiz as we have every Thursday since March, even though our zoom team all had other plans. We managed a score of 39 out of 50 which certainly isn't our worst and not embarrassing hahaha. 

Hubby didn't last till midnight but I'm normally up long after that anyway and I always like to welcome in the new year, this year of course I wanted to wave goodbye to the old one! 

I have to mention Eastenders, not everyone's choice of entertainment but it is mine and yes the Christmas and New year stories are always very dark, but when they focus on just one actor for a whole programme that's when they are amazing. Tonight Danny Dyer as Mick Carter faced his darkest night ever and sought the help of the Samaritans and it was a great tribute to them along with great acting. I hope like me many people are moved to make a donation. 

Midnight and so many fireworks going off around me, so many families needing to celebrate and look forward. I spent quite some time moving from window to window with a smile on my face. 

I'm positive as always, we will get through this, but for a while yet we must stay safe, keep to all the rules and more than ever be kind to everyone especially ourselves.